I'm trying to track down a bug or mis-configuration on our new Debian web server running a PHP/MySQL driven website with apache. I won't bug you with the gory details here but just want to ask:
Did anyone out there ever observe the web browser receiving a "http 500 inernal server error" while NOTHING alike appears in the apache's error and access log? It's currently not about the details here, but just that I believe this strange behavior should already lead into the right direction since I don't believe there are many possibilities where this can happen at all.
When this internal server error happens, the PHP scripts continue running just fine without any failure, but of course the result they want to deliver to the browser will never appear, since the browser already thinks about his internal server error being the end of the world as he knows it.
Any comment/idea welcome,
Roman.
Best Answer
SOLVED: Alas, there is a load balancer controlling the server, and the load balancer was set up to stop connections after 10 seconds of inactivity or so. The problem is solved now. The reason the 500 did not show up in the apache's error.log is that it was the "outer" system (the load balancer) stopping the connection, not the server itself. Thank you all for your ideas and help! Hopefully someone else will find this enlightening some day.
Best regards, Roman.